3 Beams are all on top of ship and have excellent time-on-target.
I know the PvP purists will cringe, but my PvE build has three heavily engineered efficient turret beam lasers. Runs continually with little heat build-up. Keeps shields down nicely for my MC and does a decent amount of damage on their own. When target is below 5% I let the beams finish them off and save the MC ammo. Fighter was OK, but I lost a lot of money for that second pilot for very little gain and eventually gave that up for a decent size bi-weave with fast recharge. The beams are my co-pilot now.
